We Need To Talk About Kevin film review

WHAT turns a child turn into a teenage killer? You won’t find any answers in director Lynn Ramsay’s adaptation of We Need To Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver’s acclaimed novel about a guilt-ridden middle-class mother, Eva (Tilda Swinton) grappling with the horror of having raised a boy turned high-school mass murderer.

Atmospheric and beautifully shot but ultimately empty and meaningless, the picture plays like an art-house version of The Omen as we track Kevin’s journey to infamy through the memories of his mother.

The boy is so evidently evil-from-the cradle that analysis of his environment and family life is irrelevant and merely creates a huge sense of exasperation with his parents who should have summoned professional help at the first opportunity.

Instead, mum Eva seems to exist in a trance (both before and after his atrocity) while dad Franklin (John C. Reilly) is almost comically clueless.

Even as a subjective memory that may be distorted by emotion there’s little of substance here, but the performances by Jasper Newell and Eztra Miller as the 6 and 15-year-old Kevins are creepily convincing.